"..is a city in Douglas County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 286 at the 2000 census. The city is notable in Minnesota history for being the place where the famous, if questionable, Kensington Runestone was first displayed. The stone tablet may indicate that Scandinavians had come to Minnesota in the 14th century. It is now at a museum in nearby Alexandria, Minnesota...

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-AttractionsKensington Runestone
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"is a 200-pound slab of greywacke covered in runes on its face and side which, if it is genuine, would suggest that Scandinavian explorers reached the middle of North America in the 14th century. It was found in 1898 in the largely rural township of Solem, Douglas County, Minnesota, and named after the nearest settlement, Kensington. Runologists and linguists consider the runestone to be a hoax.[2][3] The runestone has been analysed and dismissed repeatedly without local effect.[4][5][6][7][8] The community of Kensington is solidly behind the runestone, which has transcended its original cultural purposes and has "taken on a life of its own"...
Edward Larsson's notes
Many runes in the inscription deviate from known medieval runes, but in 2004 it was discovered that these appear along with pentadic runes in the 1883 notes of a 16-year-old journeyman tailor with an interest in folk music, Edward Larsson.[35] A copy was published by the Institute for Dialectology, Onomastics and Folklore Research in Umeå, Sweden and while an accompanying article suggested the runes were a secret cipher used by the tailors guild, no usage of futharks by any 19th-century guild has been documented. However, given that the Larsson notes are the only firm evidence for 19th century knowledge of these futharks, it does appear that a secret has been kept with considerable success. The notes also include the Pigpen cipher, devised by the Freemasons, and it may not be coincidental that the abbreviation AVM seen in Latin letters on the Kensington stone also appears (for AUM) on many Masonic gravestones; Wolter and Nielsen in their 2005 book even suggested a connection with the Knights Templar.
Related Sites:
ARCHEOLOGY:

"..The isotopes also show the men had eaten a high-protein diet, comparable to known sites in Sweden. It means the men were probably Scandinavian Vikings who were executed by Anglo-Saxons.
Evans and her colleagues at the British Geological Survey's NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory in Nottingham, England, analyzed 10 of the skeletons over the course of six weeks...
BOOKS:
Kensington Rune Stone, Kensington Minnesota

" September 12, 2009 — A brief pictorial to the book 'The Kensington Rune Stone' by authors Richard Nielson and Scott F. Wolter"

".. is both a forensic inquisition and engaging mystery. As an easy-to-follow reference source, it’s the must-have guide for making an informed decision about the evidence surrounding one of the most famous inscriptions in North America. As the scientific community’s own Da Vinci Code, this book is poised to expose the clash of scientific ideology, politics and academia—while distilling the truth into one clear, but spellbinding, tome...

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Alexandria, Minn. (AP) — Many Scandinavian-Americans hold it as an article of faith, or at least reason enough to ignore Columbus Day: A rock plucked from roots of a tree in Minnesota in 1898 proves the Vikings were here first.
Ever since a Swedish immigrant farmer claimed to have unearthed the 202-pound Kensington Rune Stone, carved with runic characters and inscribed with the date 1362, true believers have insisted that the stone is real and chronicles early Norse exploration of the New World.
Comes now Scott Wolter, a Minnesota geologist and longtime champion of the stone's authenticity, with what he says is new evidence that the stone is real.
What's more, Wolter says his research shows that the visiting Vikings were also Knights Templar and the stone they left more than a narrative of exploration. It was, he said, a "claim of acquisition," covering the Mississippi, Missouri and - you bet - Red River water-sheds. ..
GEOLOGY:
Kensington Runestone story (KBJR-TV Duluth MN)

"December 15, 2008 — Hoax or history? On November 8, 1898, a Swedish immigrant farmer, Olof Ohman, and his ten-year-old son say they found a Scandinavian runestone, dated 1362, wedged in the roots of a tree in rural Minnesota."
*see connection to "Int'l Peace Garden" in North Dakota

" Who would expect a ski hill in the middle of farm country?
Well, back in 1980 the Anderson Brothers envisioned just that, a ski area on Tower Hill. They had a vision for a couple of thousand skiers a season. Twenty- eight ski seasons later over a million skiers have visited the Andes Tower Hills Ski Area-one of the finest ski areas for miles around..
Andes Tower Hills-Skiing Hawaiian Cruise on Sunday, March 7th 2010

{2014}

Olga Downhill Skiing at Andes Tower Hills (Kensington, MN)

{2013}

*Snowboarding after a 40 F. degree afternoon on Friday, January 18th 2013